Tangled Up
by Sophia Bee
Summary: Dan loves Blair. Blair has said I love you too many times. Angst. One shot.


Blair has said I love you too many times and in too many ways, so when it comes to Dan Humphrey, she decides she doesn't want to say it at all. Dan says I love you in so many ways without words that Blair loses count, and sometimes she can't look at him because when she does, it's always there, in his eyes, the way his mouth curls into a smile, the way he touches her.

"Blair,"

Blair knows Dan is smiling. She can tell from the tone of his voice. She glances up briefly and pretends she didn't hear him, or that she doesn't care, or that she's really too busy to pay attention. She's sitting on the floor of her bedroom in a patch of sunlight that's streaming through the window leafing through a magazine.

"Hmmmmmmm."

She doesn't look up at him again, just stays there staring at the pages that are no longer making sense, pretending to read, all the bags and shoes and spring fashions blending together in some nonsensical way. She is just staring, blinking, hoping he'll decide she didn't hear him and go back to whatever he was doing.

He doesn't.

He's lying across her bed, the New Yorker discarded on the silk duvet, his chin resting on his hands, staring down at her, and Blair knows that he'll have those words in his eyes and she'll have an answer for him and it's not the answer Dan wants. If she doesn't look at him she can keep pretending that those words aren't wedged between them.

Someday she'll ask him, maybe in the middle of some mundane task, like washing dishes, or reading the morning paper, or between bites of Indian takeout. She'll stop what she's doing and look a him, study his face and finally ask him when the moment was that he knew he loved her. But right now, if she lifts her eyes and locks her gaze with his, she knows she's going to find out too soon. Some things are best left as mysteries.

She looks away from the magazine to the window. The sky is brilliant cerulean blue, dotted with puffy white clouds and Blair stops to wonder at its perfection. It should make her happy but it makes her feel melancholy and lost and just a little bit sad. There was a time when she thought she might be able to find perfection, that fairytales could happen, that love was enough. The sadness grows and it starts to clench in her chest and Blair blinks and her eyelashes are wet with tears.

Dammit.

Blair has said I love you too many times.

Dan is good to her. He opens doors and brings her small presents and sends silly texts that make her laugh. He smiles when she walks into the room and he's always touching her, anchoring her to him like he's afraid she might float away. He is careful with her, his mouth skimming over her shoulder or her stomach, his fingers always a little tentative, his eyes always asking for permission before he fucks her. Like she might break, and sometimes Blair feels that breaking might be exactly what she's about to do.

She thought this might be simpler, with less strings, fewer games, no ties that bind. She could be Blair and Dan could be Dan and they could leave the conjunction out. Except that sometimes she catches him watching her and his entire face is saying that he wants that word between them, and Blair doesn't know how to say that she's not ready for that without hurting him, and she doesn't want to hurt him because it will hurt her too much.

How do you tell a boy who loves you dearly that you've loved another for too long, that you can't love him right now. Blair had been chuckandblairblairandchuck for almost as long as she could remember, and now she needed to be just Blair, and what she hated the most is that this meant that Dan would be hurt.

What she would never tell him was that when she wakes up with her room all dark with only the moonlight throwing shadows on the walls, and the entire world has been compressed down to different shades of gray, when her eyes flutter open and she feels Dan stir a little next to her and he moves a closer, seeking out the heat of her body, his arm thrown over her hip, and she pulls the covers up around her chin and shivers from something besides the cold, it's in that moment that she knows...she knows...

The truth.

Morning brings back all the lies she tells herself, and Blair washes her face and carefully applies her makeup and the mask is back on and she's safe again. She has told too many boys that she loved them and ended up broken, so this time she's refusing to break.

"Blair."

Dan's voice has grown serious and she knows she can't ignore him much longer. She lives in a world of unbalance, constantly scrambling to try to keep everything from tipping over. She measures and weighs and waits to look up at the right time so she can keep up the facade and he'll never guess that she can't find a way to say those words. It's just another game that Blair plays and she wishes she could be done with games, but they come second nature to her.

He's in the same position when she finally looks up at him and once again she's overwhelmed by the love she sees there and the naked desire and it makes her flood with warmth, and Blair wonders if she will ever get tired of seeing Dan look at her that way. She wishes she could find a way to break out of the past that binds her and keeps her trapped, the fear that saying those words, allowing those feelings will only lead to destruction and heartbreak. She'd rather have this moment, this boy who loves her so, than risk losing everything likes she's done before, over and over by saying those words. Love is not Blair Waldorf's friend.

Dan slides off the bed and kneels on the floor next to her. His hand comes up to brush the hair away from her face and Blair smiles in spite of herself, in spite of all her sadness. She finds that she does a lot of that around him, and for a moment she can forget that she can't give him what he wants. He leans forward and places his lips on hers, pressing them together in a sweet kiss that makes Blair ache with something other than desire, and if she didn't shove that feeling away, burying it deep, she might start to realize that maybe the words she can't say aren't as impossible as she thinks, but she ignores all the thoughts jumbling in her head as Dan starts to whisper in her ear.

"You are so beautiful and amazing, and there's not a moment that you don't thrill me and I want to tell you, right now, right here..."

Blair closes her eyes. Fuck. She knows what he's about to say. His voice is gravelly, catching in his throat and Blair wonders why he's chosen this moment of all moments to finally say those words. Why now, in the middle of the day as they're doing boring things together, why does he have to be different than the others who were always full of grand gestures, the kind of moments you read about in books. Why can't he be predictable? She can ignore him better if he's just more of the same.

She wants more than anything for him to just stop.

"Please, don't." Blair whispers, her voice sounding strained, and as much as she wants to push him away, she leans forward and touches her forehead to his, closing her eyes, wanting this moment to disappear and wanting it to never end, and Blair is so confused.

Blair has said I love you too many times.

The words hurt. They make her think of games and broken glass, and sometimes her fingers subconsciously find the barely visible scar on her face where Chuck has left her a permanent reminder of him. They remind her of Louis whispering his betrayal in her ear, and she wasn't sure how she managed to stay standing let alone smile as he spun her around the dance floor at her own wedding.

Nothing good comes from those words, so she begs him to just not say them. Their foreheads are still touching and Blair squeezes her eyes shut tightly, and she feels Dan's hand slide up her arm to her shoulder, and then she somehow manages to speak, her voice barely a whisper.

"Don't say those words. I can't...I won't..."

Lose you.

Love has not been Blair's friend. Love has hurt her, left her broken and battered, and she doesn't know if she can handle picking up the pieces again. And somehow, Dan knows this, because what he says next floors her.

"I'm not like them."

He knows.

Blair lets a sob escape, a strange, low sound, and suddenly she's in his arms, her face buried in his chest, her hands gripping his shirt until her knuckles turn white. Dan's lips are in her hair and she hears him shushing like he's soothing a baby, and she can't stop crying. He's saying something that she can't make out, and she can't stop herself from shaking, but later she'll realize she heard him loud and clear.

_...i love you i love you i love you i love you..._

She lets it all go. All the self loathing, all the moments when she felt unloveable and alone, all the betrayal and pain. It comes flooding out and tears are streaming down her face, wetting Dan's flannel shirt. She lets go of Chuck and how he destroyed her dreams, lets go of Louis who only loved one version of her and couldn't live with anything else, she let go of feeling that she would never be worthy of anyone's love.

Blair has said I love you too many times and those words are too tangled up in everything that has ever hurt her, but Dan somehow knows this. Years later she will tell him that this was the moment she realized that she could love him, the moment that she finally started to unravel all of her past mistakes, the moment she was finally able to allow herself to truly feel worthy. And he will smile at her, because he's know that all along. But right now they are just Dan and Blair, sitting in the sunlight, hearts beating in time.

"It's okay if you can't say it." he says after a long time. "I'm not going anywhere. I can wait."

They are still on the floor of her bedroom and she is in his lap and his arms are wrapped tightly around her like if he lets go she might disappear. Blair lifts her head and gazes up at him. She says nothing, just kisses him and it's not a sweet kiss this time, but hungry and wanting, and Blair hopes Dan knows that this is as close as she can come to those words right now.

~fin~


End file.
